Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman [books to read for 12 year olds txt] 📗

preparing for departure,

Devises houses and lands to his children, bequeaths stocks, goods,

funds for a school or hospital,

Leaves money to certain companions to buy tokens, souvenirs of gems

and gold.

 

But I, my life surveying, closing,

With nothing to show to devise from its idle years,

Nor houses nor lands, nor tokens of gems or gold for my friends,

Yet certain remembrances of the war for you, and after you,

And little souvenirs of camps and soldiers, with my love,

I bind together and bequeath in this bundle of songs.

 

} Pensive on Her Dead Gazing

 

Pensive on her dead gazing I heard the Mother of All,

Desperate on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battlefields gazing,

(As the last gun ceased, but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d,)

As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d,

Absorb them well O my earth, she cried, I charge you lose not my

sons, lose not an atom,

And you streams absorb them well, taking their dear blood,

And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly impalpable,

And all you essences of soil and growth, and you my rivers’ depths,

And you mountain sides, and the woods where my dear children’s

blood trickling redden’d,

And you trees down in your roots to bequeath to all future trees,

My dead absorb or South or North—my young men’s bodies absorb,

and their precious precious blood,

Which holding in trust for me faithfully back again give me many a

year hence,

In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence,

In blowing airs from the fields back again give me my darlings, give

my immortal heroes,

Exhale me them centuries hence, breathe me their breath, let not an

atom be lost,

O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!

Exhale them perennial sweet death, years, centuries hence.

 

} Camps of Green

 

Nor alone those camps of white, old comrades of the wars,

When as order’d forward, after a long march,

Footsore and weary, soon as the light lessens we halt for the night,

Some of us so fatigued carrying the gun and knapsack, dropping

asleep in our tracks,

Others pitching the little tents, and the fires lit up begin to sparkle,

Outposts of pickets posted surrounding alert through the dark,

And a word provided for countersign, careful for safety,

Till to the call of the drummers at daybreak loudly beating the drums,

We rise up refresh’d, the night and sleep pass’d over, and resume our

journey,

Or proceed to battle.

 

Lo, the camps of the tents of green,

Which the days of peace keep filling, and the days of war keep filling,

With a mystic army, (is it too order’d forward? is it too only

halting awhile,

Till night and sleep pass over?)

 

Now in those camps of green, in their tents dotting the world,

In the parents, children, husbands, wives, in them, in the old and young,

Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content

and silent there at last,

Behold the mighty bivouac-field and waiting-camp of all,

Of the corps and generals all, and the President over the corps and

generals all,

And of each of us O soldiers, and of each and all in the ranks we fought,

(There without hatred we all, all meet.)

 

For presently O soldiers, we too camp in our place in the

bivouac-camps of green,

But we need not provide for outposts, nor word for the countersign,

Nor drummer to beat the morning drum.

 

} The Sobbing of the Bells [Midnight, Sept. 19-20, 1881]

 

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,

The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,

(Full well they know that message in the darkness,

Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the

sad reverberations,)

The passionate toll and clang—city to city, joining, sounding, passing,

Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.

 

} As They Draw to a Close

 

As they draw to a close,

Of what underlies the precedent songs—of my aims in them,

Of the seed I have sought to plant in them,

Of joy, sweet joy, through many a year, in them,

(For them, for them have I lived, in them my work is done,)

Of many an aspiration fond, of many a dream and plan;

Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing eternal identity,

To Nature encompassing these, encompassing God—to the joyous,

electric all,

To the sense of Death, and accepting exulting in Death in its turn

the same as life,

The entrance of man to sing;

To compact you, ye parted, diverse lives,

To put rapport the mountains and rocks and streams,

And the winds of the north, and the forests of oak and pine,

With you O soul.

 

} Joy, Shipmate, Joy!

 

Joy, shipmate, Joy!

(Pleas’d to my soul at death I cry,)

Our life is closed, our life begins,

The long, long anchorage we leave,

The ship is clear at last, she leaps!

She swiftly courses from the shore,

Joy, shipmate, joy.

 

} The Untold Want

 

The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,

Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find.

 

} Portals

 

What are those of the known but to ascend and enter the Unknown?

And what are those of life but for Death?

 

} These Carols

 

These carols sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,

For completion I dedicate to the Invisible World.

 

} Now Finale to the Shore

 

Now finale to the shore,

Now land and life finale and farewell,

Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store,)

Often enough hast thou adventur’d o’er the seas,

Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,

Duly again to port and hawser’s tie returning;

But now obey thy cherish’d secret wish,

Embrace thy friends, leave all in order,

To port and hawser’s tie no more returning,

Depart upon thy endless cruise old Sailor.

 

} So Long!

 

To conclude, I announce what comes after me.

 

I remember I said before my leaves sprang at all,

I would raise my voice jocund and strong with reference to consummations.

 

When America does what was promis’d,

When through these States walk a hundred millions of superb persons,

When the rest part away for superb persons and contribute to them,

When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America,

Then to me and mine our due fruition.

 

I have press’d through in my own right,

I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung, and

the songs of life and death,

And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births.

 

I have offer’d my style to every one, I have journey’d with confident step;

While my pleasure is yet at the full I whisper So long!

And take the young woman’s hand and the young man’s hand for the last time.

 

I announce natural persons to arise,

I announce justice triumphant,

I announce uncompromising liberty and equality,

I announce the justification of candor and the justification of pride.

 

I announce that the identity of these States is a single identity only,

I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble,

I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics

of the earth insignificant.

 

I announce adhesiveness, I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’d,

I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.

 

I announce a man or woman coming, perhaps you are the one, (So long!)

I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste,

affectionate, compassionate, fully arm’d.

 

I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold,

I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.

 

I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded,

I announce a race of splendid and savage old men.

 

O thicker and faster—(So long!)

O crowding too close upon me,

I foresee too much, it means more than I thought,

It appears to me I am dying.

 

Hasten throat and sound your last,

Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more.

 

Screaming electric, the atmosphere using,

At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing,

Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,

Curious envelop’d messages delivering,

Sparkles hot, seed ethereal down in the dirt dropping,

Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring,

To ages and ages yet the growth of the seed leaving,

To troops out of the war arising, they the tasks I have set

promulging,

To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing, their affection

me more clearly explaining,

To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of

their brains trying,

So I pass, a little time vocal, visible, contrary,

Afterward a melodious echo, passionately bent for, (death making

me really undying,)

The best of me then when no longer visible, for toward that I have

been incessantly preparing.

 

What is there more, that I lag and pause and crouch extended with

unshut mouth?

Is there a single final farewell?

My songs cease, I abandon them,

From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally solely to you.

 

Camerado, this is no book,

Who touches this touches a man,

(Is it night? are we here together alone?)

It is I you hold and who holds you,

I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth.

 

O how your fingers drowse me,

Your breath falls around me like dew, your pulse lulls the tympans

of my ears,

I feel immerged from head to foot,

Delicious, enough.

 

Enough O deed impromptu and secret,

Enough O gliding present—enough O summ’d-up past.

 

Dear friend whoever you are take this kiss,

I give it especially to you, do not forget me,

I feel like one who has done work for the day to retire awhile,

I receive now again of my many translations, from my avataras

ascending, while others doubtless await me,

An unknown sphere more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts

awakening rays about me, So long!

Remember my words, I may again return,

I love you, I depart from materials,

I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

 

[BOOK XXXIV. SANDS AT SEVENTY]

 

} Mannahatta

 

My city’s fit and noble name resumed,

Choice aboriginal name, with marvellous beauty, meaning,

A rocky founded island—shores where ever gayly dash the coming,

going, hurrying sea waves.

 

} Paumanok

 

Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking!

One side thy inland ocean laving, broad, with copious commerce,

steamers, sails,

And one the Atlantic’s wind caressing, fierce or gentle—mighty hulls

dark-gliding in the distance.

Isle of sweet brooks of drinking-water—healthy air and soil!

Isle of the salty shore and breeze and brine!

 

} From Montauk Point

 

I stand as on some mighty eagle’s beak,

Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing, (nothing but sea and sky,)

The tossing waves, the foam, the ships in the distance,

The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps—that inbound urge and urge

of waves,

Seeking the shores forever.

 

} To Those Who’ve Fail’d

 

To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast,

To unnam’d soldiers fallen in front on the lead,

To calm, devoted engineers—to over-ardent travelers—to pilots on

their ships,

To many a lofty song and picture without recognition—I’d rear

laurel-cover’d monument,

High, high above the rest—To all cut off before their time,

Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire,

Quench’d by an early death.

 

} A Carol Closing Sixty-Nine

 

A carol closing sixty-nine—a resume—a repetition,

My lines in joy and hope continuing on the same,

Of ye, O God, Life, Nature, Freedom, Poetry;

Of you, my Land—your rivers, prairies, States—you, mottled Flag I love,

Your aggregate